Interlude 1

Fire Country
Gaku Inuzuka, Veteran Jonin

Being a sensei was hard, but he was slowly getting the hang of it. He was mostly just glad that the war seemed to be behind them, at least for another decade or two. Enough time to have another kid with the wife. Other than Hana, that was. Neither of them had really been predicting her, and they were mostly just lucky that the war ended soon enough after.

Maybe that will get her to calm down with all the nagging. He grunted, glancing down at Chairomaru. The massive, shaggy-furred and loose-skinned nin-dog could tell what he was thinking, and had a rather unimpressed expression on. Reddish-brown fur shaking with each great padding step along the southwards road towards the border into the Land of Rivers. A frown grew on his face, and he looked back towards the road.

Yeah, he wasn’t really confident in that prediction either. Normally having a kid makes a woman calm down, but it only seemed to make Tsume more agitated. He wasn’t sure if he could handle that, if she got any worse.

“What’s wrong, Sensei?”

He turned his gaze towards the speaker. A teen with dark brown hair cut short and held back with his headband, face partially covered by a strip of red cloth, concealing a weal-like scar over the bridge of his nose and left side of his face. He wore a dark jumpsuit and carried a sword just slightly too large for him on his back.

Judging from the alert expressions on his other genin, they were also a bit worried by his grunt wandering thoughts. “Hm. Nothing much, Raido.” Gaku replied, starting slowly to think of something else to say. He wasn’t about to involve teenagers in his marriage troubles, so he needed something else.

Road, trees, grass, sky, his team, the client, her carriage, her servants…

“Madam Gozen.” He called out to the woman, who sat gracefully in the middle of a shaded carriage pulled by a team of strong and long-suffering men. Her official bodyguard, an old and glaring Samurai, walked next to this carriage, and behind them was pulled a second carriage filled with her abundant things. The woman herself was beautiful, he could easily admit, long silky hair done up in three great buns, smooth porcelain-like skin protected by the shade of her several curtains, and delicate dress clinging to her form.

It was too bad that she was both the client and something of a bitch. “Yes, Jonin?” She replied with a little, self-pleased smile. She insisted that everyone refer to her as ‘Madam’, which was more than within her right to do, but was incredibly annoying. No outright insults, just a lot of condescension and amused smiles.

“Your friend from Wind Country, do you think they’d hire Suna ninja as escorts?” He asked with a small frown.

“I should hope Yuko does, otherwise my boasting will be far less effective. A comparison is needed to dictate quality.” The noblewoman waved herself gently with a small fan, a little grin on her face. “Do your best to not disappoint me, ninja of Fire Country, I’m looking forward to the look on her face when you continually show them up!”

“…Right, we’ll do our best.” Gaku nodded with a slight frown, bringing a hand up to scratch the back of his head, turning around and looking along the road again.

“We just got done fighting a war with Suna.” Asuma, always quick to pick up on motivations, spoke up. Hair hanging long to frame his face, jaw growing wider and squarer by the year, and hair starting to grow down into the start of sideburns. His arms were pulled back, clasped around the back of his neck and letting him lean back a tad as they walked. “You think they might start trouble, Sensei?”

“Hm.” That was a pretty good excuse. “They might. It wouldn’t be smart of them, but people don’t always do what’s smart.” He shook his head slightly. “In any case, keep your guard up, there’s plenty of people who’d try to take advantage of a perceived opportunity like this.”

“To capture Madam Gozen and ransom her, right?” Kurenai had a vaguely worried look on her face, with fair features, raven hair, and deep red eyes. She was dressed in her everyday getup of a cropped kimono top and undermesh, with a red scarf tied around her waist and bandages around her lower limbs. “Or worse.”

“Well sure- but only a really stupid bandit would try that with us and that Samurai here.” Gaku grunted. “And stupid bandits usually aren’t very talented bandits. I’m more worried about someone from Iwa showing up and trying to spark something between Suna and Konoha again.”

“We’d win.” Raido declared, quietly confident.

“We could.” Gaku nodded with an unamused frown. “But I’d rather not jump right back into a war, pup. I’d rather enjoy a few years of lower stakes first, so if anything happens, we’re going to make sure that we’re not the ones to start it. Understood?”

“””Understood!”””

He was lucky he got the gloomy, quiet, thinking types in his team. He had seen what some of the other teams were like, all excitable or grudging.

“Are there any famous bandits in Tea Country, Sensei?” Kurenai asked.

“Hm.” Gaku considered that for a few moments. “There’s the Pirate Queen. She’s got a bounty of twenty-million. There’s the Red-Tail River Foxes, their bounty is somewhere around eleven million in total. There’s also Laughing Smoke, last time I checked his bounty was only eight million, but that was before he stole the fire-lotus from the Tea Daimyo. I haven’t checked since the war started, but there were rumors going around that his bounty was up to eighteen million now.”

“Fire-Lotus?” Raido questioned with a tilt of his head.

Gaku shrugged. “Some kind of special tea leaves, said to grant you legendary prowess with fire jutsu or something.”

“Ah, one of those overly-exaggerated stories then, huh?”

“Probably. The last one was sold to the Uchiha Clan and shared between Madara and the First Hokage. They had mixed feelings about spicy tea, according to the story.”

“Heh. You sure know a lot about bounties, huh Sensei?” Asuma grinned in an easy-going manner.

Gaku huffed. “Well before I was told to take over as teacher for you brats, Chairomaru and I were thinking about hunting bandits for a few years. Seeing the sights, taking heads- The whole deal sounds pretty appealing.”

Chairomaru huffed in an agreeable manner. He reached down to scratch the great dog’s ears.

“I’m sure we could still go do that- I wouldn’t mind coming along to hunt down bandits.” Asuma chuckled. Raido snorted with laughter, but nodded along all the same.

“We’re not bounty-hunters, we’re ninja.” Kurenai pointed out dryly.

“Which means we’re whatever makes money.” Raido countered.

“All that’s future stuff anyways.” Gaku interrupted before another grumbly debate could break out. “Right now, all we have to worry about is this mission and whatever comes our way on it. Taking about the future when you have a problem right in front of you is just bad business.”

“Right.” Asuma nodded along, making both Kurenai and Raido pout in the way only teenagers who thought they had everything figured out could.

He had half a mind to recommend them for the Chunin Exam after this. They were ready for it two years ago, and he knew their previous sensei was going to go through with it before he got offed, but Gaku was always a cautious sort. No need to send them in too early, especially not while a war was going on.

Suna ninja… They and Konoha weren’t exactly enemies, but they weren’t exactly allies either.

He was just hoping it was no one he had killed a friend of, or something, the front in the Land of Rivers wasn’t as bloody as the others, but there was still a whole heap of killing going on during it.

—

There was a fancy inn that sat overlooking the Hanguri Coast on the southern coast of Fire Country where Madam Gozen’s friend was apparently supposed to be waiting for them. The innhouse was run by an old retired shinobi for the sake of catering to various nobles wanting a good sea-view bed and fresh sashimi at any time. This innhouse sat on the crossroads between an east-west road that ran along the southern coast and a north-south road that ran up to Fire Capital.

All in all, a very typical place for nobles to wait while wanting to see other nobles along the road.

“There, I recognize her little carriage over there!” Madam Gozen declared with a wide smile, snapping her fan shut and waving over to it. “That smug sandfish! I bet she’s laughing at me for being late right now!”

“Defensive positioning, team.” Gaku commanded, letting them fan out in a diamond around the carts and the client. The old Samurai watched them sharply, but said nothing as they moved into position and then into the carriage-space allocated out for visiting nobility. There were a number of other carriages, of various styles and fashions, but none quite so ostentatious as the shaded veranda that Madam Gozen sat upon as they traveled.

He inhaled deeply, and sure enough the distinctive mineral and venom-scent common to ninja was in the air, and wafted towards them through a high-set ventilation window. He drooled a bit, smelling the fried seafood that came along those same airs. It had been a bit since he had had some good fried fish.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

The carriage was left to be guarded by the servants, and their collection walked up to the doors of the establishment to be welcomed within.

Gaku paid half an ear to the client talking to the hostess at the door, focusing instead on the scent in the air and trying to figure out if he had smelled it before. The hostess briefly glanced at Chairomaru, but the headband around his neck discouraged her from commenting on the great shaggy beast she was letting into the interior.

He nodded in deference to the Samurai, who stepped forwards first to evaluate the interior, then stepped forwards and nodded an ‘all clear’ to Madam Gozen. He’d do that himself if the Samurai weren’t here, but it was good to let old dogs handle the important tasks, it’s what they prided themselves on.